


Collaboration

by pavilargo



Category: Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 19:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13887441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pavilargo/pseuds/pavilargo
Summary: Stefano Valentini finds himself inspired by the vain and vacuous face-thief Pavi Largo, and makes him an offer that he cannot refuse.





	Collaboration

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so busy nowadays with school and professional writing and original fiction that I don't really have much time for fanfiction anymore and now I finally come back with a new piece and it's................... this.... crossover. Okay. Well... Appreciate the art :)

He fancied himself as some kind of photographer.

Pavi certainly had not heard of him before, did not recognize the name that had been scrawled in a messy attempt at elegant cursive at the bottom of the letter he had received. Pavi had years of experience in front of a camera, participating in photoshoots of all sorts, ranging from the professional shots, suits and ties and pleasant smiles, that decorated the front of billboards to advertise his father’s company, to the sensual, suggestive shots that were turned into glossy posters hidden in the depths of smutty magazines, adorned in lace and silk. People often wanted his time, and he was picky about whom he gave it to. He had other things to do, other things to worry about, more important than humoring every struggling artist in need of a celebrity’s face to attach their own name to.

But this particular letter captured Pavi’s attention enough that he had been interested in investigating. For one, the formality of a handwritten letter at all, in a day and age when phones and email and plenty of other, much quicker and more convenient forms of communication existed, coupled by the eloquent politeness, often veering into flowery compliments, that the letter was decorated with — Pavi certainly could make time in his schedule to humor those who stroked his ego. The time taken, the careful crafting of a letter that seemed so deeply keen on praising him, not just in words but in the technique, the effort that went into the delivery of these praises, drew him in. And, on top of it all, the promise that the desired photoshoot would be entirely free of charge, meaning Pavi lost nothing should the whole thing be a disaster. The letter promised that Pavi’s presence alone, the chance to capture him behind the camera, was enough for this _Stefano Valentini_ , and not a cent would need to come from Pavi’s own pocket.

Pavi was flattered and fascinated by his letter, and wondered if, perhaps even hoped, this Stefano fellow had some ulterior motives in inviting him over; perhaps his compliments and praises were deeper than flattery to reel him in and perhaps, at the end of all of this, Pavi, who was happy to be loved by all and certainly did not discriminate against any gender, would end the night in this smooth-tongued photographer’s bed sheets. This hypothesis was aided by Stefano’s one single request, which was that it was truly Pavi’s presence _alone_ that Stefano desired. So it was privately, without his preferred entourage of women that hung on his every word and sung praises in his ears, that Pavi arrived at Stefano’s home late one evening, on the date requested.

He had dressed up in nice formal clothing, a shiny black suit that was to him nothing particularly extravagant but still far above the price range most could imagine. Before arriving he had replaced his face with a new one, stapling the face of a young woman he had had the pleasure of encountering a night earlier over his own, a chore that had to be done somewhat frequently for his masks tended to rot and decay quickly. Skin did not last long after its original owner was no longer alive. Of course, while the faces were apart of his signature look, commonplace to the public at this point, few knew where they came from; as far as most people were concerned they were synthetic flesh crafted by his father’s company, nothing more but a gaudy fashion statement.

Just from the outside, the house was big; much bigger than what Pavi expected to be in the budget of an unknown photographer. When Pavi knocked on the grand door in front of him he almost expected it to be opened by a servant, but instead he found himself staring directly at who he could only assume to be the man he was here to see. He appeared to be about Pavi’s age, and he wore a striking blue suit, and a delicate red scarf was tied loosely around his neck, and he was smiling at Pavi as he looked him up and down with his one visible eye — the other was hidden in dark hair that hung over the side of his face.

“Paviche Largo!” the man greeted, reciting Pavi’s full name with no traces of an American accent hindering it at all. “It is a pleasure. I am Stefano Valentini.” He extended a red-gloved hand and Pavi shook it as his eyes glanced over Stefano briefly, curiously inspecting him with his previous theory on his mind. He was certainly attractive, he had a nice nose and cheekbones and he seemed very charismatic; he had a good sense of style and aesthetic. If he could speak as eloquently as he could write, Stefano certainly had a chance of getting him into his bedroom, Pavi thought wickedly.

“ _Ciao!_ You can call me Pavi,” Pavi greeted, smiling behind the flesh he wore.

“Come in, make yourself at home,” Stefano opened the door fully for Pavi, allowing him entrance into the large house, and the inside was even more impressive than the outside. Grand and ornate, perhaps a bit antique in aesthetic, bathed in the dim glow of a chandelier that hung overhead. On the walls photographs and artwork of all sorts were adorned, but Pavi did not stop to inspect them, rather focusing his attention on Stefano, who began to speak again as he walked into the house. “I am delighted to have your company this evening, Pavi.” Unlike Pavi’s accent, which was entirely fake and crafted clumsily to cover a stutter, Stefano’s words slid off of his tongue in a perfectly innate and natural Italian accent. “I have had my eye on you for some time. I suppose you could say that you have recently become… a very alluring muse of mine.”

Pavi, liking the sound of that, smiled. “Ah, yes, the Pavi is loved by many, and always happy to partake in a bit of charity work now and again.”

Stefano chuckled oddly at that and nodded. “I appreciate it,” He walked to a little table where a fancy tea set rested, and Pavi followed, standing beside him. “Can I offer you some tea?” Stefano picked up one of the cups and handed it to Pavi. Pavi accepted it, and a moment later Stefano was holding a little bowl of sugar cubes in front of him. “So, about my vision…” He dropped a sugar cube into Pavi’s cup, and then another.

“So eager to please,” Pavi commented, tone light and teasing, nearly sing-song, as a little smile stretched the lips of his flesh mask again. He enjoyed the intimacy of Stefano preparing his tea, and the elaborate display of admiration. “What is it you want from the Pavi, Valentini? What secret wishes of yours can I make come true tonight?”

Stefano poured a bit of cream into Pavi’s teacup. “I am afraid that I was a bit deceptive in my letter to you. I will admit now that I had a… secondary, selfish reason for inviting you to come here.” He walked back to the table and set the creamer down.

Pavi’s smile had turned into a devious smirk and he nodded. Of course, it seemed obvious enough from the beginning that Stefano had cared much more about getting in his pants than taking any photos. Not that he took offense, or could say he was disappointed. A photoshoot with an amateur photographer was significantly less fun than a good lay. “Oh? Do tell the Pavi what it is you desire, then.” Pavi said, voice a playful purr as he accepted a little porcelain spoon to stir his tea with.

Stefano replied by reaching into his coat pocket and taking out what appeared to be a single photograph, relatively small and very dark, difficult at first to tell what exactly was portrayed in the picture. “I wanted to show you one of my recent masterpieces,” Stefano explained, looking over his own work with a proud, satisfied smile. Pavi’s expression dropped in disappointed surprise, not expecting this, his mind tripping over itself to connect this to his previous expectations. “I could not have done it without you.” 

He held the photograph out to Pavi, whose hands were full from the teacup and the stirring spoon, so he could do nothing but lean it to inspect it. When he finally comprehended fully what it was that he was staring at his blood ran cold and his eyes went wide beneath the skinned flesh of the woman’s face he wore. The skinned flesh of the particular woman who, was, now, the centerpiece of the photograph that was held before him.

She appeared to have been captured in time exactly as he had left her the night prior; her body, from the neck down, was fully intact, save for the dagger wound that punctured through her chest and the blood that had poured from it, staining the front of the skimpy outfit she had been wearing in deep red. Her face, however, was ruined beyond repair, the flesh of her face had been carved out, sloppily but with obvious practice, leaving the deep red of mutilated muscle that the flesh had been torn from exposed beneath, rough and mangled. She sat, face gone and replaced with gnarled, exposed tissue, alone in an alley to be found and cleaned up by his father’s men before anyone could find her.

Or, that had been Pavi’s intention, but clearly she had been found by another.

“What exactly is this, Valentini?” Pavi asked, eyes fixated on the the corpse in the photograph, clutching his teacup tight.

“ _Art_.” Stefano replied, turning the photograph around to admire his own work again. “But as I said, I can only take so much credit. I was only lucky enough to have the opportunity to photograph her in all of her glory. You are the true artist behind this, are you not?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I will have my Papa sue for- for libel- slander, if you continue to make such atrocious accusations against the Pavi!” Pavi answered firmly, preparing to stand his ground on the matter. But he was becoming acutely aware of his own heartbeat, slamming hard against his chest, and the way his throat tightened around each breath. He swallowed, quickly growing overwhelmed enough to crack, not used to being under any sort of pressure, and continued on to ask, a waver in the steadiness of his voice now, “How did you, ah… find… her?”

“Art is a complex, beautiful thing, Pavi. I seek inspiration in every facet of life, but my heart lies with the end of life, with the visceral beauty of death.” Stefano gingerly ran a gloved finger down the side of his photograph as he spoke, his eyes never leaving it. “Finding others who truly appreciate my work is rare; as my art has progressed I have come to discover that most of the world is made up of philistine simpletons who cower in the face of the reality of death. It is a shame, but I will not let it hinder my autonomy, my art. I will not let the cowardice of the masses silence me.” Finally, he looked back up at Pavi with his one visible eye, and smiled pleasantly at him. “You, Pavi, draw inspiration from the same source as I. You are an artist, are you not?”

“I am a model and an opera singer,” Pavi answered quite stupidly, at a loss for words. He walked to the table and set his teacup down, wanting to rid himself of anything given to him by Stefano. The walls of the Stefano’s grand home felt tall and imposing around him.

Stefano walked to Pavi and held the photo before him again. Pavi looked at it and took it in once more, admiring Stefano’s talent, his craftsmanship with a camera, the way he had angled the photo, the shadows, the colors; it was not an amateurish snuff image, but a carefully crafted artwork, and there was something very alive in the gory display as Stefano had captured it. Her body, lifeless against the wall of the alley, was alive in the brightness of the red blood that painted her, contrasted with the stillness of the darkness of night, and she looked almost like a saint, a holy martyr, as he had depicted her. “And yet the face you wear says otherwise. You sought out that woman, picked her because you saw her beauty and wanted it for yourself. And you desecrated that beauty to make it your own. She is a symbol of your pursuit of the beautiful. You made art of both yourself and her last night, Pavi. It is marvelous.”

Stefano gave the photograph one last look of pride before putting it back into his pocket, and Pavi felt a bit more at ease knowing it was gone, as he was unsure of how he felt about it and not particularly a fan of things that made him uncomfortable. However, part of the discomfort that had settled in the pit of Pavi’s chest, he came to realize, was admittedly from the fact that Stefano had managed to flatter Pavi with his sweet words. He was no longer making him tea, yes, and it no longer seemed like sex was on his immediate schedule tonight, but his words were brimming with a flattery that was new and exciting and foreign to Pavi, and amidst the nervousness he felt about Stefano discovering his secret, he found himself captivated, too.

“So what am I here for, Valentini?” Pavi asked, wetting his lower lip behind his mask.

Stefano breathed out a sigh and clasped his gloved hand together. “Yes! I did not lie when I said I would like to photograph you, Paviche Largo. Come with me, please.” Stefano made a beckoning motion with his finger and turned to walk deeper into the house. Pavi followed him curiously, and they turned a corner into a long hallway bathed in red light. As they walked, he continued to speak. “As I said before, you have been my muse in the recent past, and I was inspired by your work to create something of my own. But it is missing something. I believe that in you is the answer. My missing piece.”

As they continued their descent down the hallway Pavi looked around, and became more aware now of the photographs that adorned the walls. Much like the photo of his own faceless victim, these photos depicted graphic and gory images, severed limbs and detached eyes, blood splatters that erupted from limp bodies. They were shot with painstaking care, each image an elegant display of life and death, the death of life. Pavi was no stranger to gore and blood; it certainly did not make him uncomfortable. With his own practice of skinning and collecting faces, not to mention his father’s business of selling, replacing, and repossessing organs, he was used to it - Perhaps even found his own sense of erotic beauty in it all, in the intimacy of murder, the vulnerability present before death. He looked to each photograph in interest, not nearly as put off as perhaps he should have been, not thinking to question the motives of the photographer who led him deeper into his home.

They came to a closed door. “In here, please,” Stefano directed. He held the door open for Pavi.

Pavi entered and found himself in a room that was entirely dark save for a spotlight that shone down in the very center of the room, onto a display unlike anything he had ever seen before, and yet, at the same time, strikingly familiar to him as well.

It was most definitely a woman — Pavi had no trouble recognizing the nude body of a woman. She was draped lifelessly on an ornate couch, her hair long and black and splaid around her head, her breasts pointed up to the light that illuminated her. There was a knife plunged into her heart, jutting out, and from the wound a steady trickle of blood had run and gathered in a puddle on the floor. Save for that her body was untouched, pale from death, and in one hand, propped up somehow, certainly not on her own accord, she held a golden mirror to her face. But her reflection was nothing but red tissue, for her face itself had been removed in the same fashion as Pavi’s victim’s had been, but with a precision that had clearly taken more care and exactness than Pavi had the time for when hurriedly removing a face before returning home after a night of debauchery. This Stefano had clearly spent time on, the job had been done very carefully, delicately, with exceptional finesse by someone who had much too steady of a hand when it came to working with human flesh. Her other arm was outstretched, hanging off the couch, and in that hand was the mask of flesh that had been carved away from her own face. It threatened to fall, but Stefano clearly had tricks up his sleeve to keep a body to remain still, exactly in the position that he desired, and so it simply dangled limply near the floor, gazing with empty holes where eyes should have been at Pavi and Stefano.

“What is this?” Pavi asked after a moment of taking in the display.

“My latest creation,” Stefano stepped forward, closer to it, close enough that he could reach out and touch her, and breathed in a deep breath, hands on his hips. “A sculpture which I have not yet named. As I said before, she is missing something.” He looked back to Pavi and his one visible eye locked with his two. “Feel free to take a closer look.” 

Pavi accepted the offer and stepped closer, standing side by side with Stefano now to admire the corpse so elaborately spread across the couch. It was regal and erotic, and, Pavi thought, quite beautiful. A worthy extension of himself, an elevation of his handiwork. “You made this because of the Pavi, huh?”

“Indeed.” Stefano nodded and reached down to gently brush his fingers through the corpse’s raven hair. “You have found a way to harness death and make yourself art, with flesh as your brush and your own face as your canvas. I had to explore it, but-” Stefano’s breath caught in his throat and he let out an exasperated sound, “-but I could not do it without your presence. I could not do it without you. You are art, Pavi Largo, and I need _you_.”

Pavi blinked, his attention pulled away from the sculpture to Stefano to look at him up and down again, to remember his first impression of him. Handsome and eloquent, dripping with praises. And Pavi soaked up the compliments, soaked up the honeyed flattery. “Yes, Valentini?” An encouragement to continue his pretty words.

Stefano smiled at Pavi, the curve of his lip illuminated by the bright light that descended down upon his masterpiece. “I would like to know, after all I have shown you tonight, all I have said, if you would now accept the offer initially posed to you. Pavi Largo: Will you be my art?” He held out his hand.

And Pavi, flattered, accepted it.


End file.
